Packed lunch = retired with £1m by 40.

[Allschoolsareartschools]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgdn3qqg7po
AIBU to say I've had a packed lunch for nearly 40 years but I dont have £1m & I'm not retired yet!
Am I doing something wrong?
Seriously how out of touch is this article? Good luck to them but its nothing to do with packed lunches.

i saw this and thought
a) what a bloody miserable existence they had
b) what are they going to do now they’ve retired so early as money can run out
c) I have taken packed lunch to work for a long time or wfh and def not a millionaire 😂 DH doesn’t so maybe that’s the issue?

We’ve just lost a friend to cancer. He worked his socks off for decades so he could retire at 60. He died three weeks ago, aged 59.

Am I the only one thinking it all sounds a bit lazy? Do nothing except go to work for 20 years, no travel hobbies, socialising or interests. Give up work so you can now do nothing 24/7.

I sold that house having built up some equity and now have a lovely home and have gradually climbed the career ladder. I also benefitted from living in a cheap part of the country where you could buy a nice house for 100k (15 years ago).

I think it’s a balance, back in those days I had a cranky old boiler that didn’t work properly and was a massive source of stress so these days I won’t go cold. But I drive old cars into the ground, try and avoid debt and pay down my mortgage. I remember my mum saying ‘there’s no helping some people’ but I think I’ve done pretty well 😊 The previous poster is 1000% correct when they say it only works if you are on a high income and can live like you earn a low income. There is a middle ground but for context I’m nearly 40 and nowhere near retirement.

So not retired then!

The thing is though that they will be earning from their finance coaching business. It’s not a charity as much as they give away some content free online. They will be paid for various activities plus advertising as previous posters have already said. Either of them could also pick up work in their previous careers should they need to as well I’d have thought.

The idea that they are “retired” is nonsense. They are not employed by anyone else if that’s what they mean - instead they are living off the returns from their investments and working at their finance coaching business.

I am a single mum who works 2 days a week as a band 5 nurse. I did their course online and followed the plan. I now earn more in interest on my investments than I do in my job. It does sound too good to be true but is working for me.

I've tried to do something in-between, but off & on at varying times due to life circumstances - and to all those younger than me (I'm mid 50s) I try to say learn from what I wish I'd done differently.

Start saving / investing from early on, even a little, as compounding is your friend. Also realising how much 'stuff' we buy / waste money on. We try to have a balance by enjoying life now (but with great deals) and saving as much as possible too.

I mean @Allschoolsareartschools your title is very misleading … it’s not all about just taking packed lunches every day is it? There’s a lot more to it than that!

FIRE is a massive gamble if you have to behave like an absolute miser for years on end. Plus you just don’t know what’s around the corner, you might drop dead the moment you finally think you’ve reached your goal.

The woman in the article is an Actuary. They earn big bucks. My old neighbour was one and earned so much her husband didn't work and they paid the mortgage off (think she was on £130K). So yeh if this woman spent the bare minimum of a £130K salary then the husband is adding his, and they are child free, they would get to £1M in 10 years. But most people will not and in reality £1M for two people to live off over the next 40 - 50 years is not realistic. I like my job, eating food I did not make and do not have to wash up after, like having heating and going on holidays, spending time and money on my kid and also like not being known as that tightwad that charges their phone in the supermarket while wearing 15 jumpers!

I can take a packed lunch to work but our work salads are very healthy and nutritious and with expensive ingredients that I don't often have at home. I think it's worth a few quid each day to get those health benefits.

Barista coffee I can do without.

The article doesn’t mention whether they have children? If I hadn’t had children I’d be rolling in it now, not still working at 63. But then I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun or felt like I’d achieved anything much either.

Articles about retirement never make me want to retire tbh, I’m just scared of being really bored and smug (hence why I avoid garden centre coffee shops like the plague).

Half of the FIRE types you read about are flogging their books/youtube about how to FIRE. A quick google of these 2 reveals dozens of articles promoting it all.

Are you really retired if you have to plaster your mog all over the internet to drum up more acolytes?

Life is now.

Yes, put money into your pension, pay off your mortgage and plan appropriately.

But don’t kid yourselves that even if you retire early , your retirement years are going to be payment enough for all the years spent scrimping and saving.
You never get your youth back

No life plan is guaranteed. I have had close family members die in their late 40s. If they had lived frugally then not much of a life.

It's about balance- saving for retirement or building up a pension pot is wise, but life is here to be lived too. Children thrive with experiences- dance or football lessons, family outings and trips- would they be off the agenda too for someone saving so hard.

I know many people are not happy in work,but I love what I do- and so does my OH. We are both mid 60s, could retire, but choose not to at this point.

Those saying the savings accrued won’t last through retirement are missing the point I think. The savings aren’t what you live on, you live on your returns and any small income you have. My savings are untouched.

and those saying you could drop dead…. Exactly! Kudos if you love your job but I didn’t and most don’t. I’m out of the rat race and living peacefully and happily on very little

Yes exactly - they've managed to save 1m in 15-20 years. That's saving more than £50k a year (ignoring compound interest etc).

Even if DH and I put every penny except essential rent and bills into savings we wouldn't be able to save half that - and we're above average earners. We probably spend something like £5-10 a week on lunch between us.

The article even talks about their high wages. It's silly to think this is within the grasp of everyone.

People dont seem to realise the price they are paying for a splash of coffee and milk and foam mostly hot water. This is why Starbucks have a chain of shops worldwide.

What if you enjoy your work? They make it seem that work is ghastly and to be avoided… Also, aren’t they still working/earning by teaching how to not work?

A couple of obsessive Scrooges.

Picking up discarded Sainsbury's receipts for tokens!! Living without the heating off. Presumably never going out or socialising. Note there don't seem to be children.

If you get to your late thirties and early forties doing that, you will be set in your ways and you won't have much of a social circle. That's difficult to break out of.

If it makes them happy, fair play to them. But there's no balance there and it is clearly obsessive rather than a normal thing to aspire to.

There's saving money and there's miserly.

This is a pretty good recipe for ordinary folk who don't want to live like monks. Brits do have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with seeing houses as investments as much as homes, are weirdly averse to investing in the stock market, and a lot do convince themselves that constantly paying for PCP'd cars is savvy because they'll avoid a garage bill once in a blue moon. I'm not saying all those things are wrong per se, just that a lot of people seem to do them because, well, that's just what 'middle class' people do, then they get to 50 wondering why they've still got a shitload of debt and why retirement still seems a long way off.

So she's 35 and he's 40 .... £1m won't last them another 50 years will it.

We chose to have kids and invest around £1M in them and their education from nursery to fully paid off university education. Plus saving for house deposits or pension seed funds for them. I will still be retiring by 55 with another £1M in my pension, which I won't touch until I am 60 so it continues compounding. 🤷‍♀️

They haven't really retired if they are still working, have they?

I think it’s helpful for people with financial goals tbh. Even if you aren’t planning to retire at 40 but at normal age it’s reasonable to look at what you do that you don’t have to that can be invested for your future. Even if it’s 10% extra a year you have put aside. It’s a bit extreme for me but there is a lot of sense in it.